Spanish PM Rajoy this week announced a series of drastic measures designed to reduce Spain's deficit.
The prime minister's fourth austerity package in seven months will scrap a tax rebate for home buyers, scale back unemployment benefits, consolidate local governments - helping to cut €3.5bn from local authority budgets - and eliminate the year-end bonus for some public workers.
Among the measures are a 3% rise in the VAT (sales tax) to 21% (yes there is a sales tax of 21% on what you buy) and more controversially (if that is possible) the above referenced reduction in unemployment benefits.
In response to the unemployment benefit reductions being announced by Rajoy in the National Assembly a government party lawmaker, Andrea Fabra yelled out "Que se jodan"! My Spanish is not fluent so I will rely on other translations ... which come out as "Screw them all" or "Fuck them" in apparent reference to the unemployed ... and in case you are not keeping track, the unemployment rate in Spain is about 25%.
First up the video, then a bit of background
El PSOE exige la dimisión de la diputada del PP Andrea Fabra por gritar "¡que se jodan!" al anunciarse el recorte a parados
Google translation with minor tweaking:
The Socialist Party has demanded the resignation Thursday of Deputy Andrea Fabra PP allegedly for yelling "Fuck them!" when the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, announced Wednesday in Congress a cut in unemployment benefits. Fabra has accused the Socialists of "manipulation" and has said that the expletive was not directed at the unemployed, but at opposition parliamentarians.
Let us see how far that explanation gets her
Congresswoman Andrea Fabra seems to be a real "princess"
Miss Fabra was appointed Parliamentary Advisor at the age of 24, straight out of university. Her father has "won" the lottery at least 7 times, and is under multiple investigations for corruption.
Her father is a local People's Party local boss in Castellon (President of the Castellon Party Council). The
Guardian had this interesting article on a statue he is having built at an airport he runs. By the way Spain has the most airports of any nation in Europe, part of a legacy of over building infrastructure during the boom.
It is the biggest white elephant in Spain – a €300,000, 24m-high statue dedicated to an infamous politician whose face will welcome people to a brand-new airport that no one uses.
The monument to Carlos Fabra, head of the newly built airport in the eastern province of Castellon and local boss of the governing People's party (PP), is being erected in the middle of a roundabout at the airport's entrance.
Although still only half built, the 20-tonne copper sculpture has provoked outrage in a country gripped by ferocious public spending cuts and massive unemployment.
I'm not sure you could write a more bizarre episode and have people believe it. But, if she does somehow become unemployed due to her outburst, ... maybe Mitt has a job for her in his campaign. I'm sure she would fit right in.